Growth Hacker’s Guide To Conversion Rate Optimization: Where To Start

Any advertiser looking to increase conversions online has two options: 1.) Get more customers 2.) Get more out ofyour customers.

Conversion Rate Optimization focuses on the second. It’s the process analyzing your conversion funnel — identifying opportunities to up-level the elements that are working and solving for the elements that are standing in the way. To put it another way, CRO is about optimizing for user experience at every level.

How Is Conversion Rate Optimization Done?

The process revolves around three crucial pillars:

Data Analysis — One of the most important tools involved will be your analytics solution. Google Analytics (for example) will give you the data you need to set a baseline for performance and develop insights for possible pain points and areas of opportunity.

Usability Surveys — Getting feedback from your users is a fantastic way to identify opportunities for improvement.

Testing — Performing A/B, multivariate, and other experiments on your site allows you to try new things and use analytics data to explore findings.

Who Should Do Conversion Rate Optimization?

Everyone looking to drive more conversions online. This process should involve participation at every level of your organization. CEOs, CMOs, marketing managers, advertising specialists, web analysts, your creative team, and your web developers will all have a hand in this process because it involves and commands a holistic understanding of your online marketing efforts.

All business types can benefit from Conversion Rate Optimization. SaaS businesses, E-commerce, nonprofits, Business-2-business — all deal with the same fundamental challenges with online marketing: How to get more visitors to do what you want them to do when they reach your website. Regardless of the type of businesses you’re a part of, this process is all about getting better results from your marketing through measurement, testing, and customer engagement.

CRO Takes The Guesswork Out Of Marketing Decisions

In our current age of endless data, there’s no longer any excuse for basing decisions on hunches, or gut reactions to performance trends. This certainly isn’t to say that internal tribal knowledge and having a feel for your customers and industry isn’t important; but adopting an appreciation of the power of data-driven decision making is crucial to finding success online. Conversion Rate Optimization is all about data.

CRO Is Something You Should Be Doing Anyway

This process of engaging with your customers, analyzing performance data, and constantly testing for ways to enhance user experience are all things you should be doing constantly. Consider the factors involved, and why they should be a perpetual part of your ongoing marketing strategy:

Customer Engagement — Website usability surveys provide direct feedback from your users. It’s great to derive insights from data and testing, but never underestimate the power of simply asking your customers how you can do better!

Data Analysis — There’s data for everything. Why not use it to make constant improvements to your site?

Testing — There are some great tools that make performing tests on virtually any element your website extremely simple to do. You should test design, functionality, usability components, checkout elements, etc. Optimizations in these areas can have a make a huge difference.

CRO Brings Teams Together

Conversion Rate Optimization also brings teams closer by virtue of the necessity to work closely across departments to get things done. Analytics teams work with marketing teams to discuss data findings. Marketing and advertising teams digest findings, develop and action plan and work with the web development team to implement website changes and experiments. The CEO is brought into the loop to discuss results of tests and form high level strategy based on findings, and so on. This is a process of constant engagement, and mitigates the problem of “silo mentality” among independent departments. This is good for businesses and good for teams.

Conclusion

Conversion Rate Optimization:

Is the process of constantly up-leveling your conversion funnel

Is done by testing, user engagement, and data analysis

Should be done by all business of all sizes, across all industries and verticals

Takes the guesswork out of optimization

Is something you should be doing anyway, but organizing it into a structured process means it’ll be more likely to get done